“For ages, I’ve dreamed of a United States where Project Censored isn’t necessary, where these crucial stories and defining issues are on the front page of the New York Times, the cover of Time, and in heavy rotation on CNN. That world still doesn’t exist, but we always have Project Censored’s yearly book to pull together the most important things the corporate media ignored, missed, or botched.”
–Russ Kick, author of You Are Being Lied To, Everything You Know Is Wrong, and the New York Times bestselling series The Graphic Canon.

“Activist groups like Project Censored . . . are helping to build the media democracy movement. We have to challenge the powers that be and rebuild media from the bottom up.”
—Amy Goodman

“Project Censored brings to light some of the most important stories of the year that you never saw or heard about. This is your chance to find out what got buried.”
–Diane Ravitch, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

“[Censored] should be affixed to the bulletin boards in every newsroom in America. And, perhaps read aloud to a few publishers and television executives.”
—Ralph Nader

“One of the most significant media research projects in the country.”
—I. F. Stone

“The staff of Project Censored presents their annual compilation of the previous year’s 25 stories most overlooked by the mainstream media along with essays about censorship and its consequences. The stories include an 813% rise in hate and anti-government groups since 2008, human rights violations by the US Border Patrol, and Israeli doctors injecting Ethiopian immigrants with birth control without their consent. Other stories focus on the environment, like the effects of fracking and Monsantos GMO seeds. The writers point out misinformation and outright deception in the media, including CNN relegating factual accounts to the “opinion” section and the whitewashing of Margaret Thatcher’s career following her death in 2013, unlike Hugo Chavez, who was routinely disparaged in the coverage following his death. One essay deals with the proliferation of “Junk Food News,” in which “CNN and Fox News devoted more time to ‘Gangnam Style’ than the renewal of Uganda’s ‘Kill the Gays’ law.” Another explains common media manipulation tactics and outlines practices to becoming a more engaged, free-thinking news consumer or even citizen journalist. Rob Williams remarks on Hollywood’s “deep and abiding role as a popular propaganda provider” via Argo and Zero Dark Thirty. An expose on working conditions in Chinese Apple factories is brutal yet essential reading. This book is evident of Project Censored’s profoundly important work in educating readers on current events and the skills needed to be a critical thinker.”
-Publisher’s Weekly said about Censored 2014 (Oct.)

“Project Censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcasting outlets are practicing thorough and ethical journalism.”
—Walter Cronkite

“Those who read and support Project Censored are in the know.”
—Cynthia McKinney

“Most journalists in the United States believe the press here is free. That grand illusion only helps obscure the fact that, by and large, the US corporate press does not report what’s really going on, while tuning out, or laughing off, all those who try to do just that. Americans–now more than ever–need those outlets that do labor to report some truth. Project Censored is not just among the bravest, smartest, and most rigorous of those outlets, but the only one that’s wholly focused on those stories that the corporate press ignores, downplays, and/or distorts. This latest book is therefore a must read for anyone who cares about this country, its tottering economy, and–most important– what’s now left of its democracy.”
–Mark Crispin Miller, author, professor of media ecology, New York University.

“At a time when the need for independent journalism and for media outlets unaffiliated with and untainted by the government and corporate sponsors is greater than ever, Project Censored has created a context for reporting the complete truths in all matters that matter. . . . It is therefore left to us to find sources for information we can trust. . . . It is in this task that we are fortunate to have an ally like Project Cen-sored.”
—Dahr Jamail

“Project Censored continues to be an invaluable resource in exposing and highlighting shocking stories that are routinely minimized or ignored by the corporate media. The vital nature of this work is underscored by this year’s NSA leaks. The world needs more brave whistle blowers and independent journalists in the service of reclaiming democracy and challenging the abuse of power. Project Censored stands out for its commitment to such work.”
—Deepa Kumar, author of Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire and associate professor of Media Studies and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University

“Project Censored shines a spotlight on news that an informed public must have . . . a vital contribution to our democratic process.”
—Rhoda H. Karpatkin, president, Consumer’s Union

“Censored 2014 is a clarion call for truth telling. Not only does this volume highlight fearless speech in fateful times, it connect the dots between the key issues we face, lauds our whistleblowers and amplifies their voices, and shines light in the dark places of our government that most need exposure.”
–Daniel Ellsberg, The Pentagon Papers

“Hot news, cold truths, utterly uncensored.”
—Greg Palast

“In another home run for Project Censored, Censored 2013 shows how the American public has been bamboozled, snookered, and dumbed down by the corporate media. It is chock-full of ‘ah-ha’ moments where we understand just how we’ve been fleeced by banksters, stripped of our civil liberties, and blindly led down a path of never-ending war.”
–Medea Benjamin, author of Drone Warfare, cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK.

“Project Censored interrogates the present in the same way that Oliver Stone and I tried to interrogate the past in our Untold History of the United States. It not only shines a penetrating light on the American Empire and all its deadly, destructive, and deceitful actions, it does so at a time when the Obama administration is mounting a fierce effort to silence truth-tellers and whistleblowers. Project Censored provides the kind of fearless and honest journalism we so desperately need in these dangerous times.”
—Peter Kuznick, professor of history, American University, and coauthor, with Oliver Stone, of The Untold History of the United States

In its annual battle to preserve “most favored nation” (MFN) trade status, the Chinese government received a big boost from a powerful dose of U.S. corporate money—funneled through the public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton. The PR firm’s lobbying effort, dubbed the “China Normalization Initiative,” was paid for by such Fortune 500 companies as Boeing, AT&T, General Motors, Allied Signal, General Electric, and the Ford Motor Company.

The campaign, which paid off in June 1996 with the Congressional renewal of China’s MFN status, was necessary due to China’s reputation for human rights violations, child labor, and prison-camp abuses. The alleged torture of dissidents were also criticisms that Hill & Knowlton was paid to refute and/or minimize.

American companies involved in the pro-China PR blitz spent over $1 million on the campaign which was supposed to convince the public that the Chinese leadership is deserving of greater sympathy. Critics argue that 11,000 Chinese were executed last year by their government—some for minor crimes—and that an even greater number of abuses go unreported. The wretched conditions of Shanghai’s orphanages are also an ongoing human rights violation that is largely absent from the annual debate over the renewal of China’s MFN status.

The exploitation of China’s economic potential by American corporations is big business. Bilateral trade between the two countries rose to $55 billion last year and U.S. direct investment in China has gone from $358 million in 1990 to $5.4 billion in 1995. Corporations budgeting their money toward the pro-China PR campaign include:

o Boeing, which has racked up sales of $3.9 billion and estimates that China will purchase $100 billion worth of new aircrafts during the next two decades.

o AT&T, which projects earnings of $3 billion from China by the year 2000.

o Motorola, which has $1.2 billion worth of investments in China—and they plan on constructing a new plant in China to manufacture pocket pagers.

o Ford Motor Company, which purchased a $40 million share in a truck manufacturing plant last November in China’s Jianxi province.

Among its many activities, Hill & Knowlton was instrumental in putting corporate representatives in touch with members of Congress, and hiring scholars to draft op-ed articles for major newspapers and to speak at media events. These “third party” advocates, as they are dubbed by industry, are well paid for their labors but seldom reveal their affiliations to the public.

Hill & Knowlton’s PR blitz clearly demonstrates how corporate America, aided by the U.S. government, distorts the image of a foreign government whose value as a trading partner conflicts with its disregard for international standards of conduct.

COMMENTS: According to Ken Silverstein, editor of CounterPunch, “The topic of the covert business lobby for China is barely touched upon in the mainstream press. And keep in mind that the area I addressed—Fortune 500 firms hiring a PR firm to manipulate news coverage—is but one aspect of a vast corporate campaign, budgeted in the tens and millions of dollars, to help China win friends and influence people (especially members of Congress). The ultimate goal of the campaign is to gain permanent most favored nation trade status for Beijing, in place of the current annual presidential review. None of this merits more than a glance from the press.

“The public would benefit from [media] exposure to this subject in several ways. First, people should know that a fair amount of what they read in their daily newspapers has been placed, directly or indirectly, by public relations firms (an example being the case covered by my article). A 1991 survey by Jericho Promotions, a PR firm in New York City, found that 38 percent of 2,432 journalists surveyed said they got half of their stories from public relations flacks and an additional 17 percent said they used their PR people for every story. Second, people should know that the foreign policy debate doesn’t take place in a vacuum and is greatly influenced by corporate money and private interests.

Silverstein did not seek to obtain wider exposure for this story but noted that CounterPunch is sent to many journalists, although none inquired about this particular issue. “I’ve learned from past experience that an ‘alternative’ publication really has to have a ‘blockbuster’ (i.e., pictures of a political figure in bed with a prostitute) in order to whet the interest of the mainstream press. In this case—a story about big business hiring a PR firm to manipulate public opinion—I felt it was a waste of time to even bother. After all, that’s just business as usual inside the beltway. Most reporters in Washington don’t even blink an eye at this sort of routine, everyday corruption (perhaps because so many of their friends and associates work in PR and other subsidiary sectors of the political-industrial complex). Thank god they’re so lazy,” says Silverstein. “Otherwise, there’d be no need for the alternative press.” According to Jim Hightower, author of “China Huggers,” “The slight coverage our country’s China policy receives is mostly relegated to the business sections, where it is mired in the arcane language of corporate economists or wrapped in the silly sloganeering of free-trade boosterism.

“America’s China policy is begging for a full media expose and a serious public discussion about what is at stake for ordinary folks—i.e., shipping more of our manufacturing jobs to China’s low-wage hellholes, giving America’s technological know-how to a competitor who will soon be using it against us, and selling out our people’s democratic values and fundamental belief in human rights. It is a corrupt policy that is being bought by the campaign contributions and lobbying fees of the U.S. corporate chieftains who will profit enormously at the expense of us and the Chinese people-a classic example of why the New Global Economy amounts to Globaloney.

“The top executives of conglomerates moving massive amounts of U.S. capital to China” are who benefit from the lack of media coverage given this issue, according to Hightower, “along with the politicians who take money from these conglomerates, and the dictatorial and murderous rulers of China. I might add that Disney Inc. (which owns ABC), General Electric (which owns NBC) and Westinghouse (which owns CBS) all have massive investments in China and have a huge direct financial stake in maintaining the Clinton policy.

“President Clinton has officially de-linked any human rights issue from considerations of trade with China, and he is aggressively pursuing a new strengthening of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (which met in Manila this month, including a Clinton audience with the Chinese president in, of all places, the ‘green room’ of the Bank of Manila) to forge a new ‘NAFTA’ that will include China.”